Vitamin D: Sun vs.

Vitamin D pills, those little orange capsules that line the shelves of pharmacies, offer a fraction of what sunlight does for the human body, "Harvard’s VITAL trial" found. It takes two forms, Vitamin D2 and Vitamin D3 — make sure to take the latter, which your skin produces when exposed to the sun. If sunlight is a symphony, pills are singular dials in that orchestra. The real magic of sunlight for health requires specific action.

Sunlight's Vitamin D: A Colorful Uses You Can't Capsulate

A vitamin D pill, upon ingestion, gets your body closer to the robust benefits that come naturally from soaking up the sun. In the body, vitamin D activates the absorption of calcium. This raises how much calcium you absorb, but that is only the first part of the story. More importantly, vitamin D decides where this calcium goes. This is where the sunshine’s magic comes in. A trial from Harvard noted that vitamin D supplements showed less shortening of telomere, which tracks biological ageing, by about three years. This is nothing to scoff at. But the same trial didn’t show that vitamin D reduced major heart attacks or strokes. This discrepancy is crucial; it shows Vitamin D supplements are not a catch-all, though there is still a lot we don’t know. So how do you get that vitamin D? Two ways: a capsule or the sky, as the speaker put it. "The obvious answer is the capsule. It’s also incomplete." Some things are best from the real, elemental source. Vitamin D does not act alone. The body needs vitamin K2 for calcium direction, and magnesium for the whole system's activation.

Latitude Matters

Sunlight is not always as straightforward as the above assertion indicates. When two friends live at the same latitude, one sees maximum sunlight and the other is indoors all day, the latter isn’t getting the vitamin D boost they need. Vitamin D pills will not fully replace the sun's benefits, especially when it comes to releasing nitric oxide, which helps regulate blood vessels and pressure. Vitamin supplements are insurance, not a replacement. The ultraviolet B rays from sunlight are responsible for an intricate matrix of benefits that vitamin D pills alone fail to replicate.

Ultraviolet Pathways Help Beyond Vitamin D

Sunlight does a lot more than simply activate vitamin D production. When ultraviolet light hits your skin, it triggers a cascade of chemical reactions. It also helps to relax blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, sets your body clock, and lifts mood. This is on top of the mitochondria boost that sunlight offers, and it’s all thanks to the ultraviolet light that vitamin D pills can’t replicate. When taking a vitamin D pill, you’re only benefiting from vitamin D. When you sit in the sunlight, you’re getting a whole host of other benefits.

Vitamin D3 vs D2

Vitamin D3 is the form that the skin makes. Therefore, it makes sense to supplement with the same form that the body knows how to use. Vitamin D2 can also be used by the body, but vitamin D3 is the more powerful form that we are designed to get from the sun, and therefore the preferred form for supplementation. Vitamin D increases calcium absorption, but it is not the decider of where the calcium goes. That’s where vitamin K2 comes in. Vitamin K2 has been shown to direct calcium into the bones, away from the arteries. Vitamin K2 manages where the calcium goes, and magnesium is needed for the absorption of the vitamin. To get vitamin K2 and magnesium, you need to change diets or take those supplements, too. The thing to remember is that the sun is not just a delivery system for vitamin D.

The Harvard Study Double Half Truth

Harvard’s Vital Trial showed that the capsule can do some wonders, but not everything. A study found that vitamin D supplement group slowed the process of telomere shortening, a factor that tracks biological aging. But while this was encouraging, the same study found no reduction in major heart attacks or strokes.